Scenes From Village Life - Amos Oz [56]
He got up from the bench and walked across the Memorial Garden. The gravel path crunched under his sandals. A night bird made a ragged sound, and far away at the edge of the village a dog barked insistently. He had eaten nothing since lunchtime, and he felt hungry and thirsty, but the thought of the house where his parents and his sisters were probably glued to the blaring television put him off. True, if he went home nobody would say anything to him or ask him anything; he could grab something to eat from the refrigerator and shut himself up in his room. But what would he do in his room, with his abandoned aquarium where a dead fish had been floating for a week, and his stained mattress? Better to stay out and maybe spend the whole night roaming the empty streets. Maybe the best thing would be to go back to that bench and lie down on it, and sleep dreamlessly till morning.
Suddenly he got the idea of going to her house: if the diesel tanker was parked outside, he would climb onto it and throw a lighted match inside so everything would explode, forever. He felt in his pockets for matches, but he knew he didn't have any. Then his feet took him to the water tower that stood on its three concrete legs. He decided to climb the tower, to be closer to the half moon that was floating now over the eastern hills. The rungs of the iron ladder were cold and damp; he climbed quickly and soon found himself at the top of the tower. Here there was an old concrete lookout post from the War of Independence, with broken sandbags and loopholes. He went inside and looked out through one of the holes. The place smelled of stale urine. The night stretched out before him in a wide, empty expanse. The sky was bright and the stars sparkled, strangers to each other and to themselves. From the depth of the darkness two shots rang out in swift succession. From here they sounded hollow. There were still lights on in the windows of the houses. Here and there he could see the bluish flicker of a TV screen through an open window. Two cars passed beneath him along Vine Street, their headlights illuminating for a moment the avenue of dark cypresses. Kobi looked for the windows of her house, and because he couldn't be sure, he chose to concentrate on one that was more or less in the right direction and decided that it was hers. A yellow light was shining there, through the drawn curtain. From now on, he knew, he and she would pass each other in the street like two strangers. He would never dare say a single word to her. She would probably avoid him, too. If someday he had to go to the post office for something, she would look up from the counter behind the grill and say in a flat tone of voice:
"Yes? What can I do for you?"
Singing
1
THE FRONT DOOR was open and cold, damp winter air blew into the hall. When I arrived, between twenty and twenty-five people were already there, some of whom were still helping each other off with their coats. I was greeted by a buzz of conversation and a smell of burning logs, wet wool and hot food. Almoslino, a big man wearing glasses attached by a cord, was bending over Dr. Gili Steiner and kissing her on both cheeks. Slipping his hand around her waist, he said:
"You're looking splendid tonight, Gili."
"Look who's talking," she replied.
Plump Kormann, who had one shoulder higher than the other, gave Gili Steiner a big hug, then he hugged Almoslino and me. "It's good to see you all," he said. "Raining hard out there?" By the coat hooks I bumped into Edna and